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Catherine from Astoria, Oregon

Libraries have been the sacred sites and havens where I have sought refuge, solace, and peace throughout my life. From the first bookmobile in Long Beach, California, where I got my first library card, to the hilltop library at Mt. Angel Abbey in Oregon where I wrote my dissertation, libraries have been those places where I have found a place to discover, write, think, contemplate, and find myself.

Libraries opened the world, the past, and the future to me. I fell in love in a library, and I found refuge from the storms of life in them. I found friends and sat with memories that poured out on paper to fill books for someone else to find on the shelves of the library.